Kinchega Woolshed

Kinchega National Park was formerly part of an 800,000 hectare pastoral lease, which once extended all the way from Menindee to the South Australian border and up to Broken Hill. 

We headed in to the National Park after breakfast. The River Road was closed due to recent rain but we could still get to the Woolshed, which is one of the key sites within the park.

The woolshed was built in 1875 from river red gum and corrugated iron.  In that same year 72,800 sheep were shorn.  92 years later, at the Kinchega Station handover ceremony in 1967, the last sheep was shorn - and that action brought the total shorn tally to 6 million, over the life of the station.  

One accommodation option for Menindee was to stay at the Kinchega Shearers' Quarters - but it was booked out at the time of our visit.

We'd both seen woolsheds before but none as large as this one.  We had a thorough look around, thinking about all those sheep - and testing the cantilevered gates!  

The light was lovely and I took a lot of shots of the site.

Menindee mooching ...

After our first glimpse of the lake, we drove into town and chatted for some time to a lovely local lady about the area.  She and her husband have a grape farm out of town. 

Menindee grapes are a popular table variety, so named due to originating from the area - and for decades local growers produced up to a million boxes a year.

Our volunteer guide gave some tips about places to visit in the area and made recommendations for lunch/dinner.

We really enjoyed our cafe lunch and then checked into our room afterward, was was a favourite of the trip. It was very clean, with colour co-ordinated towel fans arranged on the beds.  

After setting up, we headed out to look at Copi Hollow.  

Broken Hill Speedboat Club is based there, with a popular caravan park.  We were happy to use the reserve area next door and have a paddle in the water.  

There was an amazing sky - just stunning!  As large as this water area seemed, it's just a smaller section on the map.

Meandering to Menindee ...

We took the West Wilcannia Road down to Menindee, so called because it runs along the western side of the Darling River.

Long stretches of open sky and wide dirt road - with the river overflow quite close at different points.  It was beautiful.  We saw an eagle, stopped for a closer look at a central netted dragon - and just really enjoyed driving through and seeing the changing countryside.

We noticed many fallen road signs - and those still standing which featured stock silhouettes had faded from black to golden yellow!

Menindee Lakes were originally a series of shallow natural ephemeral lakes along the Darling River which were developed into water storage.

When full the lakes hold three and half times as much water as Sydney Harbour!  

I couldn't find any statistics but the lakes seemed full during our visit and we were glad to see them in their glory.

Till recently the concrete pipeline beside the road carried water from Menindee to Broken Hill.  There has been media coverage regarding it's replacement - as well as plans to divert water from the lakes, due to various community opposition.  There's some information, here.

Wilcannia

We hadn't expected it to be difficult to find accommodation in Wilcannia - but it was.  We lucked out for our first and second choices, so stayed at Graham's, where you booked at the servo in front.

Let's just say there was major contrast between our former pharmacy Nyngan apartment and our basic family room (the only one left)!

Someone had recommended the Wilcannia Golf Club for a Chinese meal and we were glad we'd taken up the advice - our (huge) meals were great!

We strolled around the town after dinner and had time for another look in the morning, including a river walk. 

Wilcannia was once a major inland river port and has some beautiful, old sandstone buildings.  I enjoyed taking photos of those and reading a little of their history.  There had been a lot of rain in the area, so the river was quite full - which was good to see.

We planned to have a couple of nights in Menindee.  Recent rain meant one of the roads was closed.  There were still two choices though and we opted for the more scenic, dirt road - which was an excellent decision!

Time out at Cobar ...

It was a shorter drive from Nyngan to Cobar - again without reception.  We saw the Fort Bourke Lookout sign and took the turn-off, assuming there would be a view of the township.  Hah!

We stood in a small caged building and looked over a huge open cut mine.  (Well, huge to us but only medium-sized on the info board). 

Back in 2014 we'd stopped overnight at Cobar, en route to Yowah but were in travel mode and hadn't seen much other than the caravan park.

We'd departed the site when I realised my hat band was missing, so we viewed the mine twice - and it was just as daunting the second time.

Nick had done some research before leaving home and we stopped in at the tourist info office to check some details.  After looking at their map, we headed out of town, bound for the Mount Grenfell Historic Site.  

Unfortunately the road in was closed, so that's another place on the "next time" list.

We had planned to have lunch at Mount Grenfell so kept an eye out for a rest area along the highway.  I don't remember the name of the one we chose but it had many clocks nailed to trees!  Some workers were using the  picnic shelters, so we set up our table, chairs and dual fuel stove in the shade of a tree - further away from the loos, which was a bonus!

There were many holes in the dirt and I meant to research what may have made them.  Some of the iridescent seeds had dropped to the ground and I wanted to research the tree also. It was a pleasant spot to take a break. 

IGA Valentines Day!

There were a few accommodation options for Nyngan and I did consider staying in a cabin as we'd done on the way home from one of our Yowah trips.  I was tempted by the former pharmacy apartment though - and it's bath! 

I'd recently packed bath bombs for our quick Dalby trip, only to find there was no bath!

There didn't seem many options for Valentines dining on a Monday night, so we decided to make use of our lovely kitchen - after shopping at IGA.  

As we walked down the road, we spotted a great menu in the window of the pub next door and almost abandoned our DIY plan, till we realised the pub was closed down.  What a tease!

Back to Plan (IG)A!  

There were a few options but we choose pre-cooked lamb shanks with mashed potato and steamed vegetables.  Yes, it was a big cheat!  We had creme caramels for dessert, served with lots of strawberries - and some excellent bubbles.  Spotify played through our bluetooth speaker and we were very pleased with dining efforts.

Valentine's Day 2022 (Moree to Nyngan) - one to remember!

Oversize!

We were not long out of Moree when we spotted another sign beside the road.  This one was too crumpled to salvage (in spite of Nick's best efforts), so we put it back where we'd found it.  

Although we had planned to be away for just over three weeks, we didn't want to book our accommodation too far in advance - so only had bookings for our first two nights.  Nyngan was our planned stop for our second night - and the route from Moree across to Nyngan was new to both of us, so we enjoyed driving through different countryside.  

Our lunch stop was Carinda, where there was information about the Macquarie Marshes.  At that stage I didn't realise we would be driving along the marshes, which was a real highlight of the afternoon.  Lots of wetland beside the road and various waterbirds lifting off as we came closer.  Just magic.

I didn't have phone reception much of the day or I would have searched for Burrima Boardwalk when we saw the turn-off.  Visiting there is on our "next time" list.

We spotted an eagle on the ground a little further along.  Usually they fly away long before we get close but he/she was still in the same place when we back-tracked.  As special as it was to this wonderful bird up close, we were concerned about possible injury, so discussed what we could do.  

Nick had reception further along the road, so called Burrima and also WIRES.  A WIRES carer drove out from Warren (two hours away) to try to find the eagle.  She reached the spot around the same time was we arrived in Nyngan.  We'd sent photos of the tar pattern on the road and she searched extensively without success.  After speaking with her supervisor we all learned that sometimes these birds are just too heavy to fly after a big meal.  Yep, oversized?!

While we were glad the eagle seemed to have recovered, we felt a bit disappointed that the carer had made such a long trip without success - but she sent sunset photos and assured us that she'd enjoyed the drive.  Smiles all round!